“I think this needs to change.” Then a long pause. “I don’t know who to vote for.” The answer, syncopated and slow, comes from one of the traders at Mercado dos Lavradores in Funchal, who had received a campaign leaflet from the Bloco de Esquerda.
It’s almost eleven o’clock in the morning. An hour earlier, nearly three dozen English and French tourists at the main entrance, looking at photos taken with their cell phones, commented on the “beauty” of the old building [foi inaugurado em 1940] created by architect Edmundo Tavares during the time of Fernão de Ornelas [presidente da Câmara do Funchal entre 1935 e 1946] and that that morning would be a political stage for the national leader of BE and the candidates for deputies in the Legislative Assembly.
The delegation, about twenty people, finds the market already empty due to the flow of tourists. Marina Mortagua, Roberto Almada [cabeça de lista] and Dina Letra [a número dois] they walk along the main corridor “downstairs”. They distribute leaflets. There are some smiles. There aren’t many conversations. Almost no one refuses to receive propaganda from the Bloco de Esquerda.
Meters away, on the “fishing square”, virtually empty at that hour, the scenario repeats itself. One of the sellers receives the advertisement from Dina Letra. Look. Smile. And when the group leaves, he folds the brochure he keeps in his pocket.
Do you know who they are? I ask. “I know that one,” he says, pointing in the direction of the two candidates. “They’re from here. I’ve seen them on the posters.” And then? “I don’t know who to vote for.” Do not know? He looks at me seriously, shrugs his shoulders, puts the fish on the stand and answers dryly: “I’m going to think about it. And I don’t even know if I’m going to vote.”
The group is already leaving. The time on the market was short. Go left around the building towards the main entrance, facing Fernão de Ornelas Street. The traffic light is red. The entourage stops.
Why did the visit go quickly? Did you feel no empathy? “No, but we still have to build this entire street where there are a lot of people, trying to cover as large an area as possible. We went around the market and now we are going there,” says Mariana Mortágua. Was it different from the last election? Roberto Almada, who would give an excited speech hours later at the lunch meeting, shrugs that “there are always people who do not want to receive election propaganda.”
The traffic light turns green. There are not many people on Fernão de Ornelas, a shopping street. It’s hot. “This tropical climate, this humidity is killing me,” said one of the members of the delegation.
Candidates for the regional parliament and the leader of the blocistas hand out pamphlets to the people on the terraces. “What about Catarina?” The question is addressed to Mariana Mortágua. I don’t hear the answer. In the middle of the street I try to find out if this question comes up often. “Yes, she is an icon of this country. And she helped with the campaign here. People are very used to seeing her here, so it’s normal. We always take turns. And that’s how we do it very good.” .
Every now and then the brochure is offered to tourists – “Good luck,” they say with a smile – because, as one of the members of the delegation explains, “the origin [das pessoas] it is not on the forehead”. And here it is “normal for this to happen”.
Further on, Mariana Mortágua, surrounded by her supporters, hears encouraging statements from a group sitting on a terrace: “Go ahead, we have to change”, “The people are to blame for all this because they are afraid to change”, ” Day 24, let’s put them out on the street.”
“That’s it, thank you,” says the block leader.
Going up and down the street didn’t take long either. The group returns to the market, to the café near the entrance to “drink some water” as “it’s a muggy day”.
And what about the proposals of the Left Bloc? “If there is a housing crisis on the continent, it is much worse here, it is a worse crisis here.” The ‘here’ is said in a charged way. “People here have nowhere to live. Funchal is the third most expensive city in the country.”
Mariana Mortágua believes that BE’s “very determined, strong policy” gives them an “ability to communicate with people” that is “recognized”. And, he says, there are “signals” that the mobilization “will yield results in the elections.” What signs? “Those who come from the campaign, from what people say on the streets. The regime is unfair, it does not create jobs.”
The call is interrupted. “The girl is so beautiful!” The lady with white hair, smiling, talkative, who says she is “much older than 60 and I won’t say more”, and who “doesn’t mind” being seen talking to “this girl”, collapses endless compliments.
“I like her ideas, there is a lot of intelligence in them. I like her simplicity, she has good diction. And my husband appreciates her very much: “that girl is spectacular,” he says. You know that politicians sound like dogs they talk. …and she doesn’t. And there are some that are all cars and women. It’s like I’m telling you.”
Mariana Mortágua smiles, thanks for the “so many compliments”, and concludes the idea: “The goal is clear. We are here to remove the absolute majority and the PSD from the government. Madeira must change”.
Housing, transparency, freedom
The next stage, the lunch meeting, in Câmara de Lobos, with a hundred supporters, will be televised for the speeches. And neither Roberto Almada nor Mariana Mortágua took advantage of the moment: short sentences, clear messages and even the excited or dishonest tone was present and underlined.
“Business for some, misery for many. Pharaonic works, concrete all the way to the sea, deals worth millions, minimum wages and insecurity for those who work,” Roberto Almada summarized.
The leader of the bloc, who took notes as she listened and applauded the words of the BE list head, went further and said she was not “afraid to say the names” of the “great figures” led “of Grupo Sousa on the head”, the names of “those who benefit from the crisis of the poor”.
“You don’t play with people’s lives, you don’t play with people’s salaries (…) freedom is having a place to live, freedom is being able to have a house and have a family, freedom is having a salary that allows us to live. In our country, freedom means that we can live in wood,” he emphasized.
And Miguel Albuquerque? “He is a real estate developer for rich foreigners, he is not a government official.”
Source: DN
